THE old 1930s melodramas that featured cunning, homicidal schemers preying on weak, rich and isolated women may just have had their day.

Earlier this season, an attempt was made to find fresh life in Emlyn Williams’ 1937 thriller ”Night Must Fall,” but it proved creaky and predictable.

Now the Pearl Theatre Company is weighing in with Patrick Hamilton’s slow and ponderous 1938 thriller ”Angel Street,” about a greedy husband trying to drive his rich wife mad and find some hidden jewels.

In Act 1 of the play (better known by its original title, ”Gaslight”) the wicked husband cruelly befuddles his cowed wife; in Act 2 a comic detective pops in and clues in the wife; in Act 3 the wife at last turns on her trapped hubby.

Director Rob Urbinati and a gallant cast are hogtied by the script. Carol Schultz plays the wife as a masochistic moron who just doesn’t get it until very late in the day, but there’s no other way to do this material.